Debunking the 2000 election theft CT

[Brainster]

There you go, hop on the acknowledged derail track...
Hey, welcome back!



That's more than amusing. It's actually a pretty good thought exercise. But I can't dive into it so no bother even wading, but still a worthwhile perspective. All things considered I think a Gore victory emerging from the ugliness of Florida would have been worse, in a lot of ways. The 9/11 nutters looking to stolen-election POTUS Gore and his Globalist cabal... you think Birthers are bad...

Okay that was a little wading but that's all.

Oh, I absolutely believe the Truthers would have been far worse if 9-11 had happened on Gore's watch; anti-government conspiracy theories are much more popular on the right than they are on the left.

Mostly I don't contribute to the thread as I don't find the conspiracy theories about the 2000 election very entertaining. Occasionally something does hit my hot button, like the RFK Jr., nonsense, but for the most part I prefer cleaning out the garbage disposal to debating this particular CT.

 

[Caustic Logic]

No matter who SHOULD have won, the votes needed to be counted.

Don't get me wrong, I totally agree. To satisfy cosmic justice, all ballots should have been checked for voter intent whenever it could be determined, and all people turned away wrongly should have been given a chance to cast their votes. I started out a little arrogant, hoping to make my case just on the lesser known disenfranchisement issues, to finally say "and that's in addition to the bad ballot, vote-counting and supreme court aspects." So my first point turned out a little more ambiguous than I thought, but... that's in addition to the later sheistiness we're onto now.

You can steal an election you would have won like you can frame a guilty man - neither is right.

True. The SC probably didn't know what the planned recount would or wouldn't reveal. All they had to know was there was a danger of overturning the vote there, and they decided to give it no chance, based on pretty arbitrary reasoning. It seems to me they felt they were not so much stealing as protecting the Bush gains, however gotten.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Mostly I don't contribute to the thread as I don't find the conspiracy theories about the 2000 election very entertaining. Occasionally something does hit my hot button, like the RFK Jr., nonsense, but for the most part I prefer cleaning out the garbage disposal to debating this particular CT.

I understand what you mean. I usually have more fun sticking to arguments where I'm capable of winning. Not a lot of other Republicans have even bothered stepping in here to argue Bush's case.

Interestingly few, in fact...

 

[BenBurch]

...

True. The SC probably didn't know what the planned recount would or wouldn't reveal. All they had to know was there was a danger of overturning the vote there, and they decided to give it no chance, based on pretty arbitrary reasoning. It seems to me they felt they were not so much stealing as protecting the Bush gains, however gotten.

And this from a body the majority of which claimed to believe in the original intent of the founders? Well, I am here to tell you that the Drafters never intended a Judicial Oligarchy, but that is what they made themselves.

I firmly believe we need to reflect this experience in an amendment to the Constitution barring any court from interfering in the counting of votes and naming of electors by the States UNLESS to require that ballots be counted and voters be enfranchised.

And I also believe that those still on the court who voted for that decision should be impeached and then tried for sedition.

 

[skeptical]

The more I learn about it, the more it offends me. That said, I would appreciate an opposing view.

Let me preface by saying that I voted (half heartedly) for Gore. I also voted twice for Clinton, once for Kerry and once for Obama. So generally, I vote Dem is what I'm saying.

Also, I disagree with the ultimate outcome of the SCOTUS decision on one major point: they should have let the FL come up with a workable standard and try to recount the votes in the time they had remaining.

That said, the decision is not as bad, IMO, as the Levine link indicates. I read the decision as soon as it was published, and I have not reread it since so this is from memory, but here goes.

The court determined that one of the big problems with the recount was that different districts were making differing decisions on how to recount the votes. There were no standards set up by the FL supreme court. The court found this (7-2) to be a violation of the EP clause of the 14th amendment, and I agree with this. You cannot have variable standards for enforcement of a constitutional right. The part where I (and the minority opinion) part ways is that the majority simply declared that the process was hopelessly flawed and that there was no way the recount could be done. I take exception with that. Coming up with a clear standard is not difficult, and there were thousands of volunteers willing to help with the effort. I may not have been possible to get the recount done, but SCOTUS should not, IMO, have removed that decision from the hands of people in FL.

My suspicion is that what was really going on is that 5 justices suspected there was simply too much shenanigans going on and that even assuming clear standards, any recount would not be objective enough. Having watched people on tv look at the exact same card and have one person say "Gore" and the person sitting right next to them say "Bush", I can understand this. But, sometimes Democracy is messy, and I think they should have allowed FL to do its best in the time remaining. (yes, I know we live in a Federal Republic and not a Democracy so don't go all pedantic on me)

Part of the problem in all of this is that the FL supreme court refused to come up with a standard to examine the votes. So, it got appealed to SCOTUS, and then SCOTUS sent it back to FL, and then it went back up to SCOTUS for the final decision. All of that was wasted time during which a statewide recount could have happened.

In the end, with all of the accusations and counter-accusations I think it came down to a fairly simple matter: the FL voting system was F'd up, and it might have cost Gore the presidency, depending on how the votes would have been recounted. I recall watching David Boises (sp?) say that if the recount had used the standard they favored, then Bush wins a recount, but if the recount had used the standard Bush favored, then Gore wins a recount. (this was some years back). I don't know if that's true of not, but that gives an indication of what one of the major players thought about it after the fact.

ETA: If its true that Scalia had son's working for Bush on this case, then I would consider that to be a clear COI, and he should have recused himself. I don't remember hearing about that anywhere other than Levine's link

 

[Caustic Logic]

Good post, skeptical. Sounds like you've got a good but faded grasp on part of the story. I agree pretty much with all you said except a few points.

The lack of time was not just a SC decision but was based on actual deadlines in Florida law. "Safe harbor" I think they call it.

I'm not so sure statewide standards could be agreed to within the time frame they had. Or anywhere near that time frame. It would probably take months if they hustled.

I may not have been possible to get the recount done, but SCOTUS should not, IMO, have removed that decision from the hands of people in FL.

Unfortunately, the most powerful people in Florida were already working on stopping the re-count. (see case Harris vs. Palm Beach County, etc.) But for the other people who were counting, of course, an uneven count is closer than just tossing out all the question marks. I mean really, what's the discrepancy? It makes no sense to pretend it's the overriding issue when the people's voice on President is at stake. Uniformity is good when there's time, but not here where they insisted on it. The most powerful people in Florida were quite happy to have the decision made for them.

On the irony of the campaign's counting methods, the likely source of that was cited and mentioned here by Kritikos back in post 76. Which reminds me, kritikos, Kestrel - this Media Consortium ballot project that found all these different scenarios, is this the same as the investigation I cited early on, so often cited as showing Bush won? Or are there two or more prominent media group surveys? I should know that by now but realized with horror I do NOT!

 

[fezzic]

Actually I think the 'safe harbor' is a Federal deadline as regards when a State has to declare its electors and be mostly immune to challenge in the Congress with respect to the validity of the electors.

As far as standards for the recount, I thought there was a state-wide standard already but it was just that it was not being applied uniformly or consistently in the disputed counties' recounts or the efforts to lead to a recount. But that's just my impression.

 

[Kritikos]

Which reminds me, kritikos, Kestrel - this Media Consortium ballot project that found all these different scenarios, is this the same as the investigation I cited early on, so often cited as showing Bush won? Or are there two or more prominent media group surveys? I should know that by now but realized with horror I do NOT!

According to the article in FrontPage Magazine, October 4, 2004, cited by you in post #5, there were two newspaper consortiums that came to the same result:

The two independent audits by the newspaper consortiums, most of which were antipathetic to Bush being president, revealed that he would have won the election if the recount continued. One consortium was USA Today and the Miami Herald. The other consortium was composed of The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, the St. Petersburg Times, The Palm Beach Post, The Washington Post and the Tribune Co., which includes the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel and Baltimore Sun.

The article then provides the following information about the consortium formed by USA Today and the Miami Herald, quoting an article at CNN.com:

According to a CNN report filed on April 4, 2001, the Herald/USA Today audit determined, "If a recount of Florida's disputed votes in last year's close presidential election had been allowed to proceed by the U.S. Supreme Court, Republican George W. Bush still would have won the White House, two newspapers reported Wednesday."

No need to explain the second reference further, since that is the Media Consortium Ballot Project with which we are familiar.

 

[BenBurch]

Except the actual study of the votes said that Bush wins under ONE of the sets of assumptions, but not under the other scenarios...

 

[Caustic Logic]

Except the actual study of the votes said that Bush wins under ONE of the sets of assumptions, but not under the other scenarios...

And happy birthday, dude!

Thanks Kritikos, that might just help some. Fezzic - your points may well be right, I'm certainly no expert, just passing on what I read, with misunderstandings and all.

 

[skeptical]

Actually I think the 'safe harbor' is a Federal deadline as regards when a State has to declare its electors and be mostly immune to challenge in the Congress with respect to the validity of the electors.

As far as standards for the recount, I thought there was a state-wide standard already but it was just that it was not being applied uniformly or consistently in the disputed counties' recounts or the efforts to lead to a recount. But that's just my impression.

Yes, you and CL are right, the deadline was the "safe harbor". FL had said they wanted to take advantage of it, and it seemed like there was probably no way they could make it with a state wide recount. However, that's one of my problems with the whole thing, it was basically decided by fiat that it couldn't be done without allowing FL to try to make it. Since the original vote was known, I never understood the logic of not allowing FL to try to do the recount using state wide standards.

Which goes to your other point. Yes, there was a standard, but as I recall it was far too loose. Basically "intent of the voter", but that left it up to each county (and maybe each polling precinct?) to determine in practice how to implement that, which led to the insanity everyone saw on tv with people squinting at hanging chads.

The whole thing really was a cluster f*. I can't understand why it is not illegal for state representatives who have responsibility over the way Federal election results are handled in their state to be intimately involved in those Federal campaigns. Of course, I cannot understand why we allow money to control our political process either, so what do I know.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Yes, you and CL are right, the deadline was the "safe harbor". FL had said they wanted to take advantage of it, and it seemed like there was probably no way they could make it with a state wide recount. However, that's one of my problems with the whole thing, it was basically decided by fiat that it couldn't be done without allowing FL to try to make it. Since the original vote was known, I never understood the logic of not allowing FL to try to do the recount using state wide standards.

The key may be in remembering it was a 5-4 decision> Not everyone agreed to call the election where it stood.

Which goes to your other point. Yes, there was a standard, but as I recall it was far too loose. Basically "intent of the voter", but that left it up to each county (and maybe each polling precinct?) to determine in practice how to implement that, which led to the insanity everyone saw on tv with people squinting at hanging chads.

IF the SC had a genuine problem with timelines making statewide standards impossible, as they said and may be true, they should have put a tad bit of trust in the counties to try for fairness in their own ways. Intent of the voter is the clear standard I'd recommend, and almost always is discernable. It seems to me these standards were set up at the county level. The problem is when inspectors can see clearly the intent, in where the voter dimpled the ballot (almost always cleanly next to one candidate's name), but were often forced to dismiss it as a non-vote since the law says it must be a broken chad - for example as I posted earlier, Palm Beach County first used a one corner rule, then decided two corners needed to be free. Others may have demanded three corners or all four broken with the chad gone and the edges of the hole neatly filed smooth, and circled with a special pencil they only hand out to "certain voters." Who knows?

But whatever the method, it's bound to be more accurate than the machine count and thus a plus. Some people didn't want plus.

The whole thing really was a cluster f*. I can't understand why it is not illegal for state representatives who have responsibility over the way Federal election results are handled in their state to be intimately involved in those Federal campaigns. Of course, I cannot understand why we allow money to control our political process either, so what do I know.

Because America is a ***************, I guess. You'd probablly feel differently if you were one of the people with plenty money and rentable electorates.

 

[TheBigKahuna]

Not ignoring the rest of it, but to this point: 6.
All it took was the Supreme Court stopping all recount efforts, assuming the real vote total in FL came down as a coin flip the other way.
Not some grand conspiracy, but with a SecState willing to stop the recount and a Supreme Court willing to agree, the total that was in favor of the party all 6 belonged to got the white house.
Add to that the poorly designed ballot that got some people confused and left some votes difficult to count (remember pregnant chads? Elderly Liberal Jews for Buchannan?) to further muddle the count.
And to the frustration of the moderate left, the influence of the Workers World party, the Trotzkist party that stole more votes than the difference between Bush and Gore.
And don't forget the frustration of those that think maybe democracy should be based on the popular vote.

/rambling frustration

The democrats approved that ballot, so who screwed up there.

 

[Caustic Logic]

The democrats approved that ballot, so who screwed up there.

First, this is only a small part of the whole story.

A woman (Theresa Lepore) temporarily registered Democrat (prev Ind and Repub) approved the bad butterfly ballot design for Palm Beach county, if that's what you mean. She also slipped this in last minute, having published a different practice ballot design ahead of time. She also oversaw creation of county voter rolls with misspelled names and other errors that blocked people from voting, left the office with her whole staff at 5pm election day (no help for those blocked from voting), refused to press charges against a dem guy caught with a Voto-matic machine for unclear reasons, and voted to proceed with manual recount against the wishes of Forida's State Dept, and was a longtime acquaintance of weird people like Adnan Kashoggi.

So this ambiguous person is who screwed up there. As far as I can tell, she was willfully involved in the fraud, registered Dem before the election as camouflage (Sound crazy? It worked on you), and approved the recount since her bad ballot probably handed enough Gore votes to Buchanan anyway.